


Gentle Storm

by bearprince



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Slow Burn, a slapdash effort at historical accuracy, also playing fast and loose with book/show canon, it's somewhere between, salve for my gay trans southern heart, teasing since the literal dawn of time, with a couple extra touches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-05-02 15:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 14,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19201459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearprince/pseuds/bearprince
Summary: Crowley has always questioned everything.  They both knew that was how he Fell. But why must he drag Aziraphale along with his insurmountable questions instead of letting him just have Faith in the Ineffability of it all and in the Infallibility of God Herself?Aziraphale and Crawly watched with their heads cocked like Labradors, which would later come around to existence.Amidst the soft breathing and wet noises Adam and Eve were making, Crawly jabbed his tail at them. "What do you reckon this is, angel?"Aziraphale, who felt he should have a sense of propriety about this but did not know why, pondered for a few moments. Then: realization. He clapped his hands together. "Oh! This must be procreation. Very sacred."Friends-to-lovers montage extended cut with a healthy dash of existentialism and absurd humor.The story begins as vignettes but chapters will lengthen as the story moves through their history. Updates every couple of days.





	1. The First First Time

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you @heartofmyth for beta reading, encouraging, and generally being my best friend, and also my partner @a_void for their continued love, support, and fuel to the flame.
> 
> Title is from "Gentle Storm" by Elbow.

A few days after there was light and water and earth and the rest, a very curious thing was happening with Adam and Eve.

Aziraphale and Crawly watched with their heads cocked like Labradors, which would later come around to existence.

Amidst the soft breathing and wet noises Adam and Eve were making, Crawly jabbed his tail at them. "What do you reckon this is, angel?"

Aziraphale, who felt he should have a sense of propriety about this but did not know why, pondered for a few moments. Then: realization. He clapped his hands together. "Oh! This must be procreation. Very sacred."

Crawly did not seem to understand.

"They're making a baby together," Aziraphale added.

"Ah. Looks like fun, doesn't it?"

Aziraphale, for the first time ever, felt heat crawl to his cheeks. "It's supposed to be very meaningful and beautiful, Crawly. Making more people in God's image, or suchlike."

Adam, at that moment, smacked Eve on the backside playfully and both of them started to giggle. Crawly raised a scaly brow at Aziraphale, who was pointedly looking straight ahead over the garden. Shortly after, the couple started making a real racket, causing some birds fly out of the trees above them. Then, it appeared that they were finished. They laid intertwined for a long while.

"Well, back to the apple tree for me, angel. Got tempting to do later, I think. That is, if they manage to leave." He winked and slithered off, leaving Aziraphale flushed and flustered.


	2. Twin Cities

Aziraphale and Crawly looked over the rubble of the cities that sulphur and fire had just torn asunder.

"So Sodom and Gomorrah were stricken from the record, huh?" said Crawly, who had started to think of himself as more of a _Crowley_. He turned to Aziraphale. The angel looked about as devastated as the city.

"I could have helped save them," Aziraphale said quietly. "But I'm sure God knew they were beyond saving. Did you make them beyond saving, Crawly?" His voice had lost all its usual inflection.

"I gave them a few ideas, but they really ran with them." Crowley watched smoke rise up in big billows. "So what, exactly, was the reason for all this? I was growing to like Sodom myself. Excellent wine."

"Well, though God's Plan is ineffable, this time they did get a rather direct message. They've been inhospitable for a long while. Killing poor people, threatening any outsiders. Punishing good deeds, knowing each other and outsiders in... lustful ways. I almost got in a spot of trouble with them myself. God's been hearing about it for ages."

"How were they supposed to know that? Is there a bloody manual?"

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "I suppose they know now."

Crowley's nose curled in distaste. "Well, say I buy that. Because it was all rather exceptional, I will admit. But… well, the lust thing, for example: why make something fun, and then make it wrong to do the fun thing?"

Aziraphale was flummoxed. "You've heard babies crying, right? She had to make the procreation fun, at least. And to some humans, murder could be fun. It's still wrong.” Crowley seemed to be really thinking about that one. “Point _being_ , fun is subjective,” Aziraphale insisted. “Besides, it was more that they were threatening travelers and each other with sex. That doesn't feel right, does it? To use a sacred thing like that?"

Crowley shook his head. "No, it does not," he agreed. "She saved Lot, though, angel. Was that you?"

"No," Aziraphale admitted. "It seems, in the end, I had little to do with it at all. Did give Abraham some tips about negotiation, though."

"See?" Crowley clapped his hand on Aziraphale's shoulder. "You did try."

Aziraphale looked uncomfortably at his sandals. "I suppose that you did, too."

"Downstairs had the idea all the smiting business was because the men were sleeping with the men, for whatever reason." Crowley leaned in and talked out the side of his mouth. "Personally, it seems that all the other men in the world who sleep with men are doing just fine. But Hell was very insistent that I try to seduce some of them, but they were already having a, oh, what did they call it? Big pile of naked bodies all together? Orgy!" Crowley said triumphantly.

Aziraphale's cheeks burned a little. What an odd sensation, really. "I think the, er, _violent_ orgies were more the problem. And the murder."

Another small blast from the sky cut off conversation for a few beats. "Well, doesn't seem like there's going to be a rainbow after this, then. A bit confusing, God's promise."

Aziraphale could have counted his own toes as he refused to look up.


	3. The Ten Commandments

"Oy, look! Moses finally made those poor saps a manual," said Crowley.

Aziraphale, whose bronze skin had turned deep umber after wandering around in the desert, flashed a bright smile at Crowley. The demon reflexively winced a bit. "It appears so."

"Wish I could part the Red Sea like that. Best I can do is stirring my tea without a spoon. Bloody impressive, that is." Crowley whistled. "And the plagues? That was some fine work. Seemed a bit downwardly inspired if you ask me, but it was certainly effective."

Aziraphale turned his head. "You sound like you're on our side."

Crowley scoffed. "I can appreciate good showmanship, angel."

Aziraphale tucked a stray platinum curl into his turban. "I do hope this is the last show for a while. Those people deserve peace."

The next few decades were filled with shuffling through sand dunes and Crowley asking, "Are we there yet?", knowing full bloody well the answer was no because it had not been forty years. The only reprieve Aziraphale got was Crowley leaving to egg on the neighboring tribes to tempt the Hebrews, which he did out of sheer boredom. Once they finally reached the Promised Land, Aziraphale had half a mind to toss him into the Jordan.


	4. Minor Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slap fight, celestial style.

Now that the Kingdom of Israel was settled, Aziraphale found himself with little to do. He was in the stables feeding camels, just to ease the duties of the righteous. Suddenly he heard a loud slap, and the camel bit his hand. "Ow!" He heard a tell-tale chuckle from behind it. He narrowed his eyes. " _You_ ," he said curtly. "Why are you here? Don't you have better things to do than scare camels?" 

"Don't you have better things to do than feed them?" 

Aziraphale's eyes became narrower. "I'm making sure the kingdom is safe, sort of like my original post at the Eastern gate." It was close to the truth, at least. He huffed. "You don't have to go and make camels bite me," he muttered. 

"It's been so _dull_ , angel." 

"If it's so _dull_ , Crawly, then why don't you go somewhere _else_?" Aziraphale asked. "Find something to _do_ —actually, don't. My job would be so much easier if you didn't." 

"Would it? I was thinking of it as a friendly competition. And it's Crowley now, by the way." 

"What?" Aziraphale shook his head as he tried to understand both things at once. "Okaythen, _Crowley_ , a friendly competition for the fate of the world? You have a funny definition of friendly." 

If Crowley and Aziraphale were lesser beings, this would have already devolved into a slap fight. As it happens, higher beings have staring contests instead. 

Crowley won as Aziraphale looked away. 

"Look,” Crowley began, “we have a lot in common, you and I—" 

"Oh, really!" Aziraphale said indignantly. "You are _not_ an angel. Er. Not at the moment," he continued, regretting his words as Crowley’s face fell. 

"I'm more like an angel than a human is," Crowley said, uncovering some mice in a grain bin so they'd run through the stables and cause chaos. "You would be bored out of your mind if it were just you here." 

Aziraphale felt the thrall of his attitude fade as he considered that. "You would be, too. You have no interest in human affairs. You just make trouble, as your job suggests." 

"It's fun for me. At least I get to be creative. Your lot doesn't trust you to do good on your own." 

"Shut up, Crawly! Er, Crowley! I'm not listening to you trying to plant those seeds of doubt in my mind." He had, after all, The Faith. No doubts. Zero. Everything that had happened was part of the Plan. Even the things with Job. Especially the things with Job. 

Crowley rolled his eyes. "You could have left ages ago, angel." 

Aziraphale took that visuospatial journey and concluded he would, in fact, be bored out of his mind within minutes. "Okay. Sure. I'll bite. But I am only biting to the talking bit, and if I hear you Suggest things then I am not engaging." 

"Silent treatment, eh? Oldest trick in the book." 

"Well, not _the_ oldest. I think that's you." 

Crowley smiled. "Then it's a close second. Maybe third, after tapping somebody on the wrong shoulder and popping up on the other side," Crowley said, which was something he did frequently. Mostly to Aziraphale. 

Both of them smiled. Aziraphale noticed for the first time how bright Crowley’s teeth were when he did, a shock of white against his russet-brown skin. Surely he’d seen Crowley’s smile before. And yet he’d still almost expected them to be yellow, like so many human depictions of evil, or at least different in some way. But no; his smile was gleaming, open, broad, contagious. Then, Aziraphale’s face faltered when he realized he should probably stop smiling, even though he wanted to keep doing it. 

"What is your face doing right now, angel?" 

"Will you shut up!" 

"I thought you wanted to talk." 

Aziraphale sighed and his robe snagged on the wall as he slid onto the ground. 

"And I thought I was dramatic," Crowley said, sliding down the same wall but with an artful flair, leg sticking out jauntily. "You've got to build up to it." 

"Oh, do I? Is that how that works?" 

"Yes, angel. You just don't appreciate art when you see it." 

"You're an angel _and_ art now. I see." Aziraphale couldn't help but grin again. 

If they had pillows, there’d be a pillow fight. As it happens, Crowley initiated a wheat fight, and soon they were slinging fistfuls of it at each other, much to the dismay of the hungry camels. Oh well, he'd clean it up later and also refill everything to the brim for good measure. Aziraphale felt guilty for laughing as much as he was, then came to the convenient conclusion that it was also part of the Plan. 


	5. Alpha Beta Gamma

"Crowley, look!” Aziraphale said, stumbling across an inscripted piece of pottery. “They're writing!"

Crowley looked it over. "Pah, the Greeks stole that from the Phoenicians! Are you really going to get this excited every time somebody new figures out how to put their name on a vase?"

“The Greeks added some things,” Aziraphale said with a huff. "It's fascinating."

"It's like watching paint dry. It's almost always laws and things like that. Or records of who owes who what amount of whatever. Been that way since the Sumerians." Crowley yawned, which was certainly for effect.

"But this isn't like that!” Aziraphale protested. “The Greeks have all sorts of fascinating ideas they can write down that other people can see for the first time.”

“And most of them are bloody lunatic, angel. You know that.”

Aziraphale huffed yet again, not knowing how to explain to Crowley how enthralling human development was to him. 

They both puttered about in Greece for a long while. Aziraphale watched the society grow around them, and partially because of them. Educational system: point Aziraphale. Bacchanalia: point Crowley. They worked around each other and rarely talked about it, doing a delicate dance around the topic. It was always, "Oh, did you try the wine from that new vineyard?" and, "Wow, this person has some wild ideas, did you hear them?" Never anything particularly controversial, mostly because Aziraphale walked away and suddenly had heavenly duties somewhere else before it got too philosophical and existential.

Now, in their walk around the plaza, they stumbled across an advertisement for the Olympic Games (The 18th Olympiad! Featuring the Pentathlon. Celebrate the Gods with art, wine, and games. Family-friendly events will take place in the Lower Plaza. Entry free, concessions not included). Crowley looked at Aziraphale and raised his eyebrows imploringly.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Let’s go then, my dear.”

Crowley’s corresponding grin lit up his face.

"If you get too drunk again and make a fool of yourself, I'm leaving you there," Aziraphale said.

"You're too good for that, angel."


	6. Second Edition

"Seems like your Emmanuel has a manual, too. More touchy-feely than the Thou-Shalt-Nots, don't you think?" Crowley squinted in the high sun.

"Mm, yes." Aziraphale did not elaborate. So many angels had gotten involved with Jesus that Aziraphale felt a little, well, hunted. It wasn't the word he would have used, but that was the feeling. He caught himself nervously glancing over his shoulder every second he was with Crowley and not doing The Work as God Intended. He also wondered all too often why he himself had not been part of the proceedings, like he'd failed an audition that never happened. Crowley startled him with a touch to the shoulder.

"You didn't even crack a smile at my Emmanuel pun, which was very good, thank you. You alright, angel?"

Aziraphale gave him a weak smile. "I think, Crowley, that I must be off. It seems miracles are growing exponentially."

"Wouldn't you like a glass of wine?”

Oh, very much, but Aziraphale shook his head. He was on the Straight and Narrow. "No, thank you. Lots to do, I’m afraid.”

“I think the humans can wait long enough for us to have a drink. They haven’t mucked it up so bad in four thousand years."

“No, I mustn’t. I’m off to have a quick word with Peter." He straightened his robes a bit self-consciously.

Something Aziraphale hadn't yet seen in Crowley snuck across his face and settled in a sneer. If Aziraphale had to guess, it'd be disappointment, though he did not think demons went in for that sort of thing. Crowley turned too quickly, robes fanning up behind him. "Right, then. I'll talk to the soldiers. Goodbye, Aziraphale."

Oh, dear. Aziraphale was left standing in the middle of the road, and had to scamper out of the way of a passing caravan. What was all that, then? Didn't Crowley have a job to do, too? Aziraphale did not have time to worry about this, because he was off to make sure Peter knew even more about the peace and love of Heaven. No one had consulted him as to what this meant for the original manual, but he quite liked the “touchy-feely” manual. It seemed straightforward and hard to muck up.


	7. Blow-in

The miracles really did pick up after Jesus. Aziraphale was in fine enough shape to dash from Rome to Petra to Constantinople to wherever else for a sainthood or blessing, but he was really very tired of buying new sandals. He hadn't had a proper meal in ages. The cities got so redundant, and the wars did, too. Who needed to conquer this much? Surely they couldn't keep track of it all. Martyrs also usually weren't blessed until after they were dead, so he didn't even have a chance to have a chat and smell the proverbial roses before blessing some new body. He did not know exactly what exhaustion was, his body not needing rest and all, but he knew his soul was weary.

This new saint he was seeking was far, far west in the Roman Empire, actually a little outside of it. It was on an island. The islands south of Italy that he was familiar with were very warm, slow-paced places that Aziraphale enjoyed. However, as he travelled across this one, he was freezing, wet, and miserable. His toga was not sufficient for this, and he hadn't thought about needing anything else. But the land was also beautiful. Verdant and lush, a sea of green as far as the eye could see. Very pastoral and worth a good landscape, if you asked him. 

He was here for a Patrick, a name which was heretofore very alien to him. He expected to find a man, and instead found a very skinny young lad tending sheep. He didn’t need to ask the boy’s name because it was always the shepherd, wasn’t it? Aziraphale had decided long ago that God was proud of inventing sheep. Currently, the sheep were grazing and Patrick was praying with his eyes closed.

"Hullo."

The boy looked up, automatically grabbing the hook as his first line of defense. He was very pale, with wide blue eyes. Aziraphale recognized the look in his eyes as a "who the hell are you?", but Patrick did not ask the question.

"Your ship is ready," Aziraphale said, hoping the boy would understand what he meant.

And the boy did. Eyes wide, he set the hook down, and then ran full-tilt down the hill towards the sea.

"It's quite a ways away, boy!" Aziraphale yelled after him, but he was already out of earshot. Oh, well. Aziraphale had faith it'd work out for him. He'd set the wheels in motion, which was his assigned duty for the island for now.

Looking over the rolling hills, the soft brooks with little footbridges and the lazy sheep… Aziraphale really didn't want to leave. He wanted new clothes and something hot to drink, but he didn't want to leave. He did not yet have his next missive, though he was sure it would come very soon. He took a long, long, leisurely stroll through the countryside, back to the part of the island that was still decidedly Roman.

Later, Aziraphale would encounter legends of St. Patrick that claimed he drove the snakes out of Ireland. This was incorrect on three fronts. First and foremost, there were never actual snakes in Ireland. Secondly, the whole myth was an allegory to driving out the druids that had previously practiced there. And third, St. Patrick couldn't keep Crowley out of Ireland, especially later when his celebration day really took off.


	8. The Arrangement

Over the course of several centuries, Aziraphale knew that Jesus’s words had actually been rather mucked up. He really thought people would latch onto his overall message, which he’d understood as being kind to one another, rather than violent conversion and using the church for petty political means. He later recognized this as naïvety. 

He was back in England, though this time there weren't any Roman soldiers. For now, there were just thatched roofs and small clans and villages. The lords constantly clashed, but the villages and the countryside were just as peaceful as he remembered. Well, give or take. He kept making excuses to come back to this island in the sea. It was overcast, the air heavy with the promise of rain. 

He passed by a man in the stocks, covered in filth and looking haggard. Aziraphale flashed him his warmest, most piteous smile. The man flinched and closed his eyes, expecting more harassment. Aziraphale’s smile quickly faded. He could have easily freed him, but people were jeering in a crowd around him. If there was one thing Aziraphale had learned over the course of several empires, it was when to pick your battles. 

A little later, when the bottom fell out of the sky, Aziraphale thought about that man trapped there in the freezing rain. Well, maybe he’d at least get clean. Aziraphale was quickly soaked to the bone. All he wanted right now was a warm place to rest and some sliver of hope that he was having a positive influence. There were pockets of homes that he passed that exuded love–new mothers were always a font of love for him. But he'd had little to do with that, of course. And other houses had sick children with distraught mothers, and more had children crying from hunger. In his mind's eye was the little mill roaring in flames with people trapped inside, but of course he'd gotten there too late to save them. Interfering hadn't been on his angelic to-do list, either. 

Distracted, he walked into a dim tavern and ordered watered-down ale, which he felt was dreadful. He was so lost in thought that he nearly fell back in surprise when he saw Crowley. He was bent over his own tankard of ale looking as pensive as Aziraphale felt. And he wondered what in Heaven's name had _him_ so upset, since, with the despair going around, it seemed like a demon was getting what he wanted. 

"Crowley," he said, and the name felt almost unfamiliar. He didn't remember the last time he had seen him, and wasn't that strange? He was sure he'd seen him in the last century. Crowley looked up, and Aziraphale saw he had a new pair of darkly tinted glasses. Aziraphale thought they looked nice with his dark curly hair cut close, resulting in waves. Then Aziraphale was a little titched with himself for losing the point. 

"Angel," Crowley said simply. There was a trace of a smile on his lips. 

Aziraphale started to smile back in greeting, but caught himself. "What are you doing here?" Aziraphale pressed his lips together, arms crossed. He was certain Crowley started the fire at the mill. Or had something to do with outlaws, or had whispered in the ears of lords to make hunting for sustenance illegal. Something was definitely Crowley’s doing. 

"Actually, I just got here. I got caught up in the Roman Empire drama and had to see it out to the end." 

So these people were just like that. Aziraphale suddenly felt so much more sad and empty without someone to blame. He drained his disgusting ale and put his head in his hands. 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Oh, is it finally time to get plastered? Hallelu–hail Sa–oh, whatever, let's do this." 

A few drinks later, on the floor of Crowley's room, Crowley and Aziraphale were pointing fingers at each other. 

"So it was _you_?" they both said at the same time. 

"You're the one who insinuated kings were divine rulers?" yelled Aziraphale. 

"You're the one who _wrote Beowulf_?" shouted Crowley. 

Aziraphale nodded, and his face split into a grin and he snorted. Crowley started to grin, too, though his was a lot more toothy. Then laughter shook Crowley's thin frame as tears streaked down Aziraphale's chubby cheeks. Then Aziraphale's face fell, as it always did when he'd had about five seconds of drunken contemplation. 

"Oh, Crowley. What are we doing? The world's gone to Hell–" 

"It has not," Crowley interjected. "The lower downs are saying it's going to Heaven in a handbasket and keep asking me how I'm letting all this tension go to waste." 

"Then why are there pillages and uprisings and constant unrest and poverty and all of these horrible, merciless people, Crowley? No charity or forgiveness or love." 

Crowley, whose glasses had come off after drink number three, lurched forward unsteadily. "There’s lots of charity, churches _are huuuge_ now!” He made wide gestures with his arms, making Aziraphale hug the wall. Somberly, Crowley continued to slur, “The world is always growing more complicated, angel. Been complicated for a damn long time. But you're not seeing the good things like you used to, either." 

Aziraphale took a deep breath, which did not help with the drunkenness a single iota. "I can't believe a demon is reassuring me right now." 

"And I can't believe an angel is having a pity party, but here we are in this complicated new world." 

"It was all complicated from the start, wasn't it?" Aziraphale laid his head against the wall, and Crowley followed suit. Aziraphale had to focus harder than he would have liked to see his yellow eyes. 

"Yes, it was.” Crowley’s face lit up a little. “So why don't we make it simpler and just agree to give Them what They want? Both sides. A little good, a little chaos. It's all out of our league anyway." 

“What are you getting at?” 

"Like we did in Greece. Not interfering with each other. You got your precious temples and books, I got gladiator battles." Crowley sighed. "Even when we're not there, things between humans balance out. And when we are there, it just happens faster. So, let's just… maintain the balance. Let each other do the work we're doing, just nothing extreme. The end result is going to be the same, anyway." 

Aziraphale sat bolt upright. "Crowley. You are not suggesting that. There's no way." 

"We've been working around each other for centuries! It's only good sense. To stay out of each other's way, to let the higher ups and lower downs get what they want. A win-win situation." 

"But!" Aziraphale found he was having to dig too deep to be self-righteous. “I… It’s not…” He already knew he would agree. "We shouldn’t." He looked up straight at Crowley, searching his eyes for a sign of something he knew he wouldn’t find. "What if we get caught?" 

"We're too clever for that, angel. And good things can turn sour, and sour things can make good bread, which is all very confusing." Crowley's long fingers were spinning in small circles. 

Aziraphale laughed, eyes crinkling. "Crowley, what are you talking about?" 

"You know! Bread!” He threw his hands up dramatically. “The stuff that goes in the bread." 

"Sourdough?" Aziraphale said. 

"Sourdough! Yes. God, I'd kill for some bread right now." 

"Well, maybe don't start doing that, but I know where we could get some." 

Aziraphale picked Crowley up out of the floor and tugged his arm all the way to the baker's. It was very late, but somehow the oven was on, and mysteriously there was a fresh, steaming loaf of bread in it despite the village's lack of flour, all very much to the sleepy baker's surprise. It was _delicious_. 

"It is good sense," Aziraphale concurred. The bread had soaked up a good bit of the alcohol so he was fairly sure he was making an informed decision. "The Arrangement. We're only getting so far trying to get the best of each other. Better to have our own triumphs." 

He held out his hand. Crowley shook it. 

"Glad you've seen the light," Crowley said. 

"Perhaps I’m glad you haven't." 


	9. Minor Temptation II

Aziraphale had, for the first time, a new mission from a demon. He kept reminding himself Crowley was doing the same thing another town over, attempting Good for the first time. "It _is_ good sense," he muttered, at once reassuring himself and mocking himself. 

Crowley, at least, had given him a simple first task. Crowley was supposed to tempt the same priest Aziraphale was supposed to bless, so, naturally, no need for them to both go from one town to the next. And Aziraphale preferred this town—good food—and Crowley preferred the other—good music. Also, Aziraphale had kept a room at this tavern that he didn't want to give up. Convenience. Same result. 

Aziraphale swallowed, looking at the man. The target, he thought with amusement. But what about the order of things? Did it matter? Would it change anything? Aziraphale didn't know. He'd seen blessed people do bad things, and tempted people do good things, and it was all a very confusing jumble of imposed versus free will. But presently a pretty girl was walking on the road in front of the priest, so the path of least resistance opened before him. Aziraphale made the man, the priest, Think about her in ways Aziraphale imagined men did about women. (That he had, of course, never really thought about women himself.*) And it was easy. Almost like he would have gotten to the same conclusion even if Aziraphale didn't make him. He saw his eyes turn up, a smile on his face that could only be described as wicked. But he didn't move towards her, an obvious effort of his own will. And eventually, the wickedness washed off of his face, and he went back to reading, perhaps more intensely than before, reciting Latin under his breath. 

That seemed as good a time as any to bless him, so he did. He blessed him for his acts of courage, his good deeds, and his own internal struggle against evil and doubt. And the priest relaxed instantly, that ever-familiar look of peace making the lines in his forehead disappear. It was subtle work, influencing human thoughts and emotions. Aziraphale really hoped he had done both things correctly. But really, it only mattered that the effort was made at all. Aziraphale fussed with his broach after that intrusive thought. He walked back to the tavern, turning in for the night even though it was hardly mid-afternoon. He rarely slept in the first place, but the man kept appearing in his thoughts when he tried to read. For not being human, Aziraphale understood more about it than he cared to. 

The next day, on one of Aziraphale’s walks, he came across a brightly glowing letter. Though preferable to the direct messages in his head—a method he and Crowley agreed was disorienting at best—leaving letters seemed increasingly out of touch in bigger civilizations where anyone could find them. And whenever he found one, he felt prompted to whip his head around every direction to spot who had left it. He’d thoroughly convinced himself this was curiosity rather than paranoia. It certainly didn’t help that sometimes these letters weren’t only new assignments; occasionally the messages scolded him, or rather, laid out the ways in which he could ‘improve’, like lowering the number of miracles in a year that were ‘nonessential’. 

He snatched the letter up, and it stopped glowing once it was in his hands. His next mission, it read, was to travel to Canterbury to consecrate a church being built for the new Archbishop by the name of Augustine. Apparently the Romans weren't quite done with England, or at least the Pope and the Church. Aziraphale never could sort out what exactly was divinely inspired and what was humanly inspired, especially because his superiors in Heaven retroactively claimed certain events as part of God’s vision. Well, if anyone had the authority, Aziraphale supposed, it would be them. 

Very rarely did he actually see his superiors, the Archangels. In fact, the last time had been around Jesus of Nazareth. They had better things to do than check up on him, and Aziraphale preferred being left to his own devices. 

So when Gabriel appeared right outside his tavern room door as he packed for his trip, it was even more startling than hearing God’s voice under a heavenly spotlight. 

"Gabriel! Hello. I was just wondering when I would see you again," Aziraphale said, who had actually been wondering how he could get wine from the Franks here without using a miracle. 

"Yes, hello, Aziraphale." Gabriel pushed past him to come into his room. It was sparsely furnished, though Aziraphale had added some comforting touches. He really wished he could hide them all now, the guilt at his little extravagances making him flustered. 

"What brings you here?" Aziraphale folded his hands behind his back while shifting his weight from foot to foot. 

"Oh, a performance review and a bit of news. We've staffed other parts of the world with angels since you seem so busy here." Gabriel pointedly looked around at his comfortable room. The idea of a performance review made Aziraphale start wandering around aimlessly, arranging things that didn't need arranging. 

"Ah, well. Plenty to keep me busy," he said, straightening up his perfectly straight bookshelf. 

"We are happy with your performance. You fulfill the duties promptly, and your paperwork is always filled out to the letter." Relief flooded Aziraphale, and he stood still for the first time since Gabriel came in. "But, since we've placed the other angels, we've noticed they bring more problems to our attention than you tend to. Wars, temptations, so forth." 

"Oh, I see. Well, I… it wasn't exactly outlined in my duties—" 

“It gets annoying when they could work it out themselves, though it’s understandable because they’re far less familiar with human interactions with you are,” Gabriel continued, apparently not hearing Aziraphale at all. “But it can also be helpful, so we get a better idea of what work you could be doing.” 

It hadn’t even crossed Aziraphale’s mind to talk to an Archangel of his own volition. Every situation had been exactly like this one, where Aziraphale felt sufficiently inferior. Maybe the other angels had been a little higher up before coming to Earth. Actually, that was given. 

"Yes, of course." The Arrangement and tempting a priest came to mind. He started wringing his hands, wishing he could stop. 

Gabriel turned one of Aziraphale's cross-stitched pillows in his hands like it was a completely foreign object. Which, Aziraphale realized, it probably was. "We've taken note of an interfering force. Seems to be near you quite often." 

"I wouldn't say too often. I haven't run into him - _it_ \- er, major interferences. For decades, really," he tittered. Time was more a construction, right? It would have been a decade on some planet, surely. But a couple of months on this planet. 

Gabriel chuckled to himself, running his fingers over the stitches. "That's the kind of problem you could report. If you ever needed a helping hand." 

Aziraphale straightened up, locking eyes with Gabriel. "I can handle it. I've been handling it." 

Gabriel didn't break Aziraphale's eye contact, flashing an alarmingly predatory smile. "I'm sure you have." He stood up, setting the cushion on the wooden chair again. "Just think about it. Think of all the Good you could do for Heaven if there was nothing in your way." Gabriel stepped out into the hallway again. "Don't be a stranger!" 

Aziraphale had every intention to be a stranger. His first instinct was to find Crowley and tell him. He was concerned Crowley was having or was about to have the same conversation with a much less understanding force. But, Crowley had taken care of himself so far, and he'd agreed to the Arrangement just like Aziraphale had. Finding him was a bad idea right now, with Gabriel and who knew who else apparently so close. That hunted feeling returned, just when Aziraphale had started feeling ignored. Safe. 

He did not believe in coincidences like making the Arrangement and suddenly seeing a superior. He was almost indignant. He didn't need checking up on. He completed his reports promptly, just like Gabriel had mentioned, and really had been doing his work with relative due diligence. 

Perhaps in the future, he could lie. He'd done it before. He'd just lied to Gabriel, after all, although whether it was convincing was questionable. He'd almost-but-not-quite lied since the beginning, really, when God asked him about the sword. He'd lied to stay in England for as long as he had. But even the thought of continuing to lie was making his pulse pound when it didn't need to. He didn't know if he could keep that up. Glass houses, and so forth. 

Aziraphale tried his hardest not to wonder, but thoughts were too often inconvenient that way. Why was he able to tempt in the first place? And why could he lie, if he was made to only do Good, to enact God's will? Oh, no more of that, he needed a drink. A strong one. 

He walked downstairs, intent on downing a bottle of hard spirits, which he had never done without the presence of a demon. And, as he slammed down his first drink, it irritatingly didn't stop him from wondering why. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Specifically women.


	10. Nightmare

_Shouting, bugles sounding from both sides, a mess of matter and starlight between them. White feathers, ashen feathers, blackened feathers--all new, molting, spreading. A ticklish light touch from a wing, then sacked in the gut by a dense ball of feathered fury. How much does a pound of feathers weigh? A blinding light, an endless Abyss, a flaming sword, a gate, a propulsion down to a New World._ “Is it finished?” _he asked. She responded,_ “It will begin.”

Aziraphale stirred slowly, then jolted as he opened his eyes to see yellow ones peering down into his. Crowley was still shaking him awake, bent over him upside down.

“Blast, you scared the daylights out of me!” Aziraphale sat up and brushed off some grass that had stuck to his tunic.

“Seems like I did you a favor, thank you! You were talking and trembling. Looked like a nightmare.”

“I was having a dream about Heaven.”

“So, a nightmare, then.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow and pushed Crowley’s shoulder, exasperated. “You can’t just say things like that to me, Crowley.”

“Can, have, will,” was his childish reply. Crowley took up his pipe from the grass and lit it, the plumes creeping up into the boughs of a willow. He held it out to Aziraphale, who declined with a wave of his hand.

“Got a few vices too many,” Aziraphale muttered.

It was a hot, muggy day for England, even for the summer. The kind of day where the only reprieve was to lie perfectly still in the shade, which was the kind of activity that was conducive to sleep, apparently. Aziraphale had refused to take off his tunic or the long-sleeved shirt beneath it; Crowley was naked to the waist unself-consciously. 

Aziraphale still felt disoriented from his nap. He’d lost the thread of their conversation after involuntarily falling asleep and having, he admitted to only himself, a nightmare.

“You were saying?” Aziraphale asked.

“I was saying that I told Ligur our side won the Battle of Hastings.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “You’ve never been to Normandy. You don’t even speak French!”

“Angel, they don’t even know what Normandy is. Just… general regions of the world. Seemed to be confused that the Alps were somewhere else entirely, last I talked to them. What did you tell your lot about the whole affair?”

“What _affair_?” Aziraphale asked, affronted.

“The new England! The new king, and all that.”

“Ah. Well… not much. They didn’t seem to notice the changing of the guard, so to speak. I did tell them I chased evil out of a town, though,” Aziraphale said. What had actually happened was that Crowley was masquerading as a royal guard for nefarious Reasons, and Aziraphale had told him to leave town and change before he was discorporated by Normans.

“How’s all that been going?” Crowley continued, gesturing between Aziraphale and the sky. 

“Nothing to report, really. I’ve been, perhaps, emphasizing the vanquishing evil bits more, but nobody’s said anything. I think They decided not hearing problems was better in the end. Less of a headache.”

“Less to actually deal with,” Crowley retorted before blowing a perfectly formed smoke ring upwards.

If Aziraphale were to have felt hunted anywhere, he thought, it should have been under this tree with a literal demon sitting next to him. It was, in fact, the only place that he didn’t. The sense of safety had allowed him to fall asleep in the first place. A bubble of discomfort rose, then stilled in his stomach as he stubbornly told it to stop. 

"You know," Crowley began, breaking the silence, "I didn't really enjoy my time in Heaven. I mean, it was a bit boring."

"I'm sure Hell is just so fascinating." Aziraphale's nose turned up at the imagined stench of sulphur.

"I wouldn't go that far. In my time during Creation, all I got from Raphael when I made a new nebula were a list of suggested improvements and maybe, here and there, a nod of approval." He took a draw from his pipe and looked up into the clear sky like he was picturing his handiwork out there in the universe. "Think that's why I started hanging out with the Bad Angels—or current demons, or whatever. Hanging on for scraps like that from an Archangel? That's no way to exist."

"You don't talk about your time there much," was Aziraphale's neutral response. Aziraphale wished he had knitting with him, or socks to darn. Anything he could do with his hands. He plucked at the grass.

"I mean," Crowley continued, "at least you always know where you are with demons. That place is bad and mistrusted. But they don't expect works of art."

A smile quirked at Aziraphale's lips. "But _you_ want to give them works of art. Your ideas of human punishment are very… creative." It wasn't a compliment, Aziraphale decided. It was an observation.

Crowley looked pleased, then indignant, then pleased again. Following his mercurial facial expressions was one of Aziraphale's favorite pastimes. He would have stopped looking at Crowley so fondly if he could see himself. "What were you doing up there in Creation?" Crowley asked.

"Um, well. Sword training, mostly."

"Oh, that worked out well for you, didn't it? Good foresight there."

"Shut it."

Crowley laughed, his smile making Aziraphale soften and smile back despite himself. Crowley snuffed out his pipe and laid back on his arm to get as comfortable as he could on the grass.

Eventually, Aziraphale watched Crowley's face slip into the unerring calm that only sleep brought him. He put the tunic and undershirt on top of his chest for some sense of decency. Then he looked at the sky, imagining how wild it would be with Crowley's full creative license. Out of curiosity, he picked up Crowley's pipe and tried it because it had made Crowley look smart and contemplative, though he would never tell him that lest Aziraphale hear about it for the next millennia. The subsequent coughing fit earned him a glare from a disturbed demon.


	11. Too Keen

Since he was in Europe for the time being, Aziraphale decided to make the best of it. He’d somehow become a lord by being at the right place at the right time (in other words, where he usually was), which had caused a lot of confusion for the pale Englishmen and also for himself. In the end, by his own merit, he was lord of little more than a one-room cabin, a garden patch, a few chickens, and a swayback horse. Any serfs he would have had suddenly had a windfall in the form of fair wages.

After pulling some weeds (read: three), he decided it was time for a cup of tea.

In a chest at the end of his hay-filled bed, Aziraphale was growing a collection of handwritten books and scrolls. He hadn’t had a chance to collect many material possessions before, being so transient, and these were his most precious. They were in all sorts of languages from his travels and from simply the passage of time — Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, a couple in Chinese, some in script he wasn’t sure was ever named — all neatly packed in the trunk. Even though he was essentially stationed here, he got around. Or had other people do the going around. He pulled one out to do some light reading while the water boiled.

Aziraphale could have sworn the steam from his kettle was actually a demonic smoke signal, or at the very least a Crowley signal, because Crowley would magically appear when he was ready to pour his own cup more often than not.

Crowley slunk in and spread himself out on the chair. Aziraphale had taken the precaution to set out another cup.

"Tea?"

Crowley shot him a look. "What else do you think I'm here for?"

Aziraphale had an answer for that but he swallowed it down and pretended he hadn't had the thought at all. Resigned to an evening of discussion, he put the scroll back and got out biscuits instead. Crowley munched in a way that made the most possible crumbs fall on the floor. He looked off into the distance as Aziraphale patiently got out the cream and honey for his own cup of tea.

"You have a cabin," Crowley said finally.

Aziraphale smirked. "Very keen of you to notice."

"Shut up." He then scalded his tongue by taking a sip too soon, which Aziraphale tallied as cosmic justice. "Angel?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Why do you collect books and scrolls and things? You can remember anything you want. You've been there."

"They're not all historical," Aziraphale said. He contemplated the question for a good while, stirring his tea. "Well, I… I suppose I want to know everything I can about the human experience."

Crowley was in front of his chest in the blink of an eye. He pulled out the same scroll Aziraphale had gotten out to read. “This one is Mongolian prophecies about yaks, angel.” He pulled out another. “And this one is Augustine of Hippo! Trite nonsense.” Another. “This one is just a diary!” Oh, dear. Crowley opened it to the first page while Aziraphale knocked over his chair to try and make a grab for it. Crowley’s longer arms kept it out of his reach. He scanned the first few pages and the grin on his face turned absolutely wicked. “He’s talking about his lover, isn’t he, Aziraphale? And in no terms are they clothed.” Aziraphale glared at him, snatched it back, and put it in the chest were it belonged. “The human experience, indeed. You’ve really run the gamut, I have to admit.”

“I want to know what they think about all this. Life, the world, the universe. Everything. About what they feel. To help them, of course.”

"You're doing as much helping them as I am. Choices, decisions, all of that."

"That's not true! I am trying to make them good--"

"You're trying to keep your head above water."

"So are you! You don't want to make them all evil. You want to do just enough. Isn't that the point of the whole–" and here Aziraphale sat forward and hissed the word, "Arrangement?"

"Aziraphale, what is the point? Why do you want to do it? What do _you_ want?"

He wanted to end this conversation, for one. "Because it's the right thing to do. I can't just give up, Crowley."

"But why? Why does it matter?” Crowley’s eyes were wild, and Aziraphale felt intimidated by them for the first time. 

“It’s the future of the universe! Of course it matters.”

“You know what I mean. It all just evens out, angel. You're just trying to make them good, right? And I'm trying to make them a little less good. And it all amounts to—?” He held out his arms in a wide motion of vast emptiness. “To what, exactly?"

Aziraphale's eyebrows knit. He didn't care for these moods of Crowley's. He'd rather argue about something that happened to the Greeks he and Crowley remembered differently that was ultimately inconsequential. He’d rather argue about that admittedly erotic diary than do this.

"Aziraphale?"

"Why do you have to ask so many questions, Crowley? And why do you ask me? I don't know! I never have! And I hate agreeing with you all the time. I hate–" He bit his tongue before saying something truly awful. Aziraphale noticed he was breathing hard. "I hate not knowing," he said. "I have books because I want some insight because the side that is supposed to have answers never does! I want–” He paused, his voice growing quiet. “I want my conviction to faith back, Crowley. You wouldn't understand."

Instantly, Crowley’s mood shifted. "You're right, Aziraphale," he said, spitting the words. "I have no idea what that's like."

This was not the pleasant afternoon tea he wanted. This was not the warm feeling he should have in his home, not the gratuitous comfort he surrounded himself with. He felt, once again, like his foundation was shaken, and there was exactly one impeccably dressed common denominator. "Please go," Aziraphale said to the table. When he looked up, he saw pain riddling Crowley's face, and didn't that twist a hot knife in his gut? "It's not–you can come back. Just. I need to think."

"Seems like we've had plenty of time to think," Crowley said caustically. He grabbed his coat and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Aziraphale poured out his tea and poured wine in his mug until it was filled to the brim. He'd let the mice eat the damned crumbs.


	12. The Cowl Does Not Make the Monk

Aziraphale continued plodding along because he had no other choice. He began to focus more on liturgical texts than other sorts of writing. He gave up his lordship and his cabin because it was really too self-indulgent and conspicuous for an angel, which he’d known from the beginning. And aside from the auspiciousness of the lordship itself, there were other, practical, human reasons for passing it along. He was a lord not in want of a wife. People asked certain, pointed questions that Aziraphale could not answer. He was acutely aware that he was developing a Reputation. So, he became a monk to see what the whole monastery thing was about. They claimed to be God’s people, after all, and it felt right.

His conviction ebbed and flowed. But at these moments… Well, if nothing else, being around educated people like these monks, discussing God’s word with a glass of wine? He grew fond of it. It was the perfect set up to get and give human education (and texts, goodness did he love those), perform miracles as needed, and hear the joy of music. The quality of the food and ale left something to be desired, but there were cons to everything. It kept him busy and he forgot if he had a real assignment more than to the area. The upstairs seemed happy enough with this arrangement–he received a commendation for selecting a priest for greatness. He had people telling him what to do, though he could ignore them if he really wanted, and that was enough. Because of his immortality, he couldn’t stay in the same monastery forever, so he could even travel.

He heard all sorts of different theories, from young men to old; though, naturally, all of them were young to Aziraphale. He had his own thoughts and opinions and knowledge, of course, but generally he kept them to himself. His input consisted of quoting directly from the Bible, which he’d nearly memorized by the time all was said and done, though sometimes he confused what he remembered and what was part of the readings.

These conversations, while good, were nothing like his conversations with Crowley. Much more careful and thoughtful, usually. Crowley, somehow, still had something childlike about him that Aziraphale couldn’t pin down. He was narcissistic by admission and smarmy to a fault, but at his core Crowley couldn’t erase his sense of curiosity. Aziraphale also noted that he thought of Crowley quite often, especially during Vespers. He was surrounded by all of these people asking big questions, but none of them were as big and raw and powerful as Crowley’s.

The abbots he liked the least were the fire and brimstone types. He never stayed in those monasteries long. He hated self-aggrandizing people, and he hated the vitriol that they spewed. They were supposed to be God’s servants, not his iron fists. They were uncomfortably similar to many angels Aziraphale had spent time with that were focused on the end of it all and had been training for Armageddon since day one.

He did get kicked out of a monastery, once. 

At that monastery, led by one of those same fire-and-brimstone abbots, the monk who shared his dorter accused him of the sin of “unnatural lust”. Aziraphale didn’t understand–he didn’t have feelings of lust. He was an angel. He didn’t even have the equipment that his roommates, especially the young ones, so often complained about. The abbot sneered as he held up Aziraphale’s copy of the _Iliad_ with the scenes of Achilles and Patroclus bookmarked, with his own notes tucked into them, then threw it out the door after him.

He reflected on this experience as he walked up the road. It _was_ foolish to have kept that book out by his bed, and indeed his chest tucked away and invisible in the cellar; however, he could not have anticipated his roommate was read up on ancient Greek. He also knew, in his heart of hearts, that nothing about men loving men was wrong. He knew that from direct divine providence. He felt embittered that his unfounded reputation continued to follow him.

He found a new monastery relatively far away from the other one, so that his reputation did not proceed him. This one had a focus on shepherding, because of course it did. He tamped down his previous disappointments and got right back to doing God’s work, or more specifically God’s work as interpreted by humans.

“Brother Fell?” the abbot said. Aziraphale liked this abbot. He did the work and made sure the community got back what it was investing in the church.

“Father John,” Aziraphale replied, himself nose deep in a new interpretation of Peter's sermons.

“Help me with dinner, please. You seem too idle.” Father John grinned, and Aziraphale smiled back. The other thing he liked about the abbot was his sense of humor.

Aziraphale only had to nod once before Father John started walking to the kitchen, making Aziraphale catch up to him. Aziraphale rolled up his sleeves and went to work peeling potatoes with a knife over a big bowl. It was not elegant because Aziraphale rarely made his own food, but he was at least always careful with his work. He didn’t like a job half done.

The problem with this was that he was several potatoes behind Father John. He frantically peeled faster, not cutting his fingers only by sheer force of will.

“Brother Fell,” Father John said, “you are very meticulous, aren’t you?”

“Is it so obvious?” Aziraphale replied with a grin. Father John did not return it, but not in a harsh way. He just wasn’t looking up. He seemed deep in thought.

“You are studious,” Father John continued, “and kind, and you help this monastery very much, but you lack ambition.”

“Come again?”

“I’ve never seen anyone as bright as you, brother. And yet you seem content to carry on with business as usual. You could have your own monastery. I even think you could be a bishop or archbishop, if you tried.”

Aziraphale looked down. “I’ve never had the calling, I suppose,” he replied quietly. He tried to let the comments slide off of him, knowing it was coming from a good place and that the abbot could not understand his position. 

“But Fell, it doesn’t work that way. Be practical. There is so much more you could do for the Kingdom of Heaven. For the people living on God’s creation. You are afraid,” he finished. It was fact, not accusation.

A fact that made Aziraphale’s insides do such a flip that he felt nauseated. “I wouldn’t know what to do with all of that responsibility,” he argued. “I rarely have my own ideas. And I am not being self-deprecating. You know me, Father.”

“You know so much, and yet you seem not to understand the wisdom of others is enough. You do not need confidence in yourself; you need confidence in God.”

Aziraphale’s heart jumped to his throat, and he swallowed around it. The conversation died, but the weight of it stayed on his chest.

That night, before Aziraphale fell asleep, he realized that, maybe, he’d become a monk because he failed to be God’s actual servant. And now, he had failed to even be the human idea of God’s servant.

Over the next while, Aziraphale tried to continue to do good work in the monastery. He blessed several bishops and priests unnecessarily, perhaps in part to prove to himself he still had the knack. This area became the most divine one in a wide radius. But it didn’t carry the same meaning for Aziraphale. After that conversation, he only felt like he was filling time, and pouring over the same texts wasn’t reassuring any more.

He left the monastery. His head hung down and his chest of belongings rolled behind him, feeling heavy, the rope pulling it burning his hands. He was foolish, utterly foolish, and self-serving, and _sinful_ , in the basest sense of the word. How could he think he would get away with this much for this long? He had to pause to sit under a tree, and, for the first time in his very long existence, sobbed for himself.

When he looked up again, eyes still bleary, he saw Crowley surrounded by light and felt like he was hallucinating, which was a new problem he didn’t want to deal with. 

He blinked, and Crowley was still there.

“How long have you been there?” Aziraphale asked, hiccuping.

“Long enough, angel.”

Aziraphale felt all the more stupid and looked down at his lap.

“I can’t believe you’ve been to so many of these. My skin is crawling thinking about it.” Crowley made a face and shuddered.

Aziraphale looked up at him curiously, still too snotty to speak.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s hard for people to miss a brown monk with white curls in rural England, innit?” Crowley looked down the dirt road. “Come on, angel. We’re getting the hell out of Dodgebury.”


	13. Akogare

“We’re headed to Japan. It’s _very_ exclusive,” Crowley said. 

“Really?” Aziraphale couldn’t help but sound delighted at the prospect. 

“Oh, yes.” 

“Where is it?” 

“Halfway around the world.” 

Aziraphale laughed, but Crowley did not. “Crowley! How are we going to get there?” 

“Come on, angel, use your imagination. You’ve seen countless navies. You have _wings_ , for Hell’s sake.” Crowley scoffed impatiently. 

Aziraphale did not use his wings for much more than stirring up some appropriate fanfare. "Well, alright. But are you going to make the ship yourself or what?" 

Crowley looked over his shades at Aziraphale. "Who, exactly, do you take me for? Doing any legwork whatsoever?” His next scoff had a hissing nature to it. “We're getting a reservation." 

They found a man in Portugal* who was, conveniently, making the right kind of trip eastward. Aziraphale had not spent much time on boats before, and unfortunately—to him, though Crowley was delighted—discovered he had developed severe seasickness since the Ark. A subsequent duel concerning the fate of the ship becoming piratical or proper ensued. It, of course, somehow ended with both. They parted ways with the crew in Kyushu as the boat made repairs and made their way over to Honshu using more celestial means. 

\-- 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, bemused, as Aziraphale kept the towel from moving in the slightest as he walked to the onsen; it was as if the fabric was stitched on, which may have been a bit paranormal on Aziraphale’s part. “Surely you’re not _this_ modest.” 

Aziraphale flashed him a very uncomfortable semblance of a smile. “Well. Perhaps I am,” he said testily. 

“But we’ve seen it all! The Olympics and bathhouses and everything. And the other men here are not exactly concerned.” 

“I think, Crowley,” Aziraphale started slowly, “that if I moved this towel they surely would be.” It was going to have to move eventually. Aziraphale knew this, and the idea of other people seeing his canvas was mysteriously completely blank was tying a tight knot of panic in his chest. 

“You don’t mean—" 

“I do mean, yes.” Aziraphale looked at Crowley, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “So you do? Have...” 

“Well, I looked at Adam and thought, ‘that’s not a bad idea, that’, and assumed the entirety of this current form.” 

“Since the beginning?!” 

“Since the beginning,” Crowley echoed. “Surely you’ve thought about it. Haven’t there been other… situations?” 

Aziraphale instantly remembered several, each of them more embarrassing than the next. But none such as this, with Crowley egging him on. He was becoming quite agitated. “What do I do?” Aziraphale hissed. He was still on the stairs into the onsen, blocking a few other people. 

“I suppose you can deflect attention, or you could just… make a mountain out of a molehill, so to speak.” 

Aziraphale wanted to discorporate. He supposed, in the long run, it’d be easier to do the second option so that he didn’t have to concentrate on deflecting attention in this moment or in future moments. He concentrated deeply, as deeply as one could while panicking, imagining and remembering all he could about how this sort of thing worked, and suddenly there was a new part of him that he really hoped he had made correctly. He didn’t exactly have the blueprints. 

“Don’t you dare look,” Aziraphale said. 

“But who better to give you some pointers?” Crowley said, a teasing sing-song in his voice. 

If a look alone could evaporate a demon, Crowley would have been errant particles. Aziraphale put his towel down, still glowering, and entered the onsen. 

And, oh, was it _lovely_. He was _almost_ glad he’d gotten so tense beforehand, because the steam and the heat of the water was melting it away. He liked massages, but he liked this more, especially with the view of Mt. Fuji and snowy landscape. It was perfect. In places like this, Aziraphale was astounded by the whole of God’s creation. 

Crowley was up to his neck in the water, looking as peaceful as Crowley ever did. His glasses were completely white with steam. Aziraphale did not know how Crowley knew he needed this, or why Crowley wanted to share this with him, but he was very glad that he had. Aziraphale’s muscles felt like jelly. 

“Crowley?” 

“Yes, angel?” 

Aziraphale didn’t know where to begin. “How did you find me?” 

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.” 

Fair enough, or as fair as Crowley got. Aziraphale watched the snow fall as he mustered up the courage to ask what he meant. He started and stopped a few times before asking, “Why did you find me?” 

Crowley scowled, then ducked his head under the water long enough for Aziraphale to fidget. 

“You said I could come back,” Crowley said after he surfaced, “after that spat in the cabin. And then you weren’t there. I wasn’t expecting that.” 

“We’ve gone our separate ways before,” Aziraphale pointed out. 

“Because of our duties,” Crowley said. “But not like that. I didn’t—" Crowley went silent again, for a moment. “I had a bit of a spiral.” 

“I’d say you were already having one.” 

“Shut up,” Crowley hissed. 

Aziraphale actually felt a little bashful. “Sorry.” 

More silence. Some bathers got out, others got in. Crowley took a breath through his nose. Aziraphale had the rare insight that Crowley was mustering up a different kind of courage. “I felt so… alone. And I did not like it. So I found you.” 

Aziraphale drank that in: Crowley’s vulnerability, his uncharacteristically curt statements, the way he still said it even though he was grimacing and clearly miserable. Aziraphale’s eyes were wide, and his eyebrows were close to his hairline. 

“Don’t _look_ at me like that!” Crowley said, though there wasn’t real bite to it. 

“You missed me,” Aziraphale concluded with the biggest, dumbest smile. 

“You are the _worst_.” 

“No, you are. By definition, my dear.” 

“Ugh!” Crowley turned all the way away from him, but Aziraphale caught the tail end of a smile before he was treated to the back of Crowley's head. 

\--

Both of them had been in Europe for so long that this was a welcome break from monotony. The structure of it was strangely similar, but the culture was still very different. Of course, the onsen Crowley had chosen was in the middle of a war zone, so that hadn't been much of a culture shock. But traveling out to the outer edges of the island was wonderful. Aziraphale appreciated the fresh seafood and the politeness. Crowley, who was committed to slightly offending as many people as possible, also liked the politeness for the opposite reason. 

Aziraphale felt comfortable, more comfortable than he had in a long time, long before the monastic life. This rhythm, the back and forth, he was very used to. Even though he wasn't where the Archangels expected him to be, he was certain he was where he was supposed to be. 

Aziraphale enjoyed kotatsus as well. Feeling toasty instead of sitting on hard pews and freezing stone definitely had appeal. He poured Crowley more sake before pouring for himself. He'd almost mastered chopsticks. Crowley had not tried to master them and was using his fingers in such a gross way that it had to be contrived. 

Crowley pointed a finger at him. "You couldn't have been a very good monk. Don't they all have vows of poverty? Extending to food?" Though Aziraphale couldn't see his eyes, he could practically feel them boring through his robes to pointedly stare at his fleshy body. It was absolutely indecent, is what it was. 

"I was a good monk! I knew lots of things." 

"Come on, angel. How much contraband did you have? The chest, at least. Other monks don't have big _chests_ full of secular books and whatever sundries you drag about." 

"And how would you know that?" Aziraphale retorted, knowing without a doubt it was because Crowley had been staking out monasteries long enough trying to find him. Crowley just scowled and licked more rice off of his fingers. 

"So you had the chest," Crowley continued, apparently obsessed. "And I know you don't like ale. How much of it ended up as wine in your cup?" 

"None!" A moment's reflection. "I—well. Almost none. Only when it was more water than ale." 

"Hah! Knew it. You love this, angel,” he said with a gesture toward their meal. “Your delicacies and alcohol." 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley instead of his plate in earnest for the first time since they’d begun their meal. Crowley was tipsy enough that his glasses had slid down his face, and a flush kissed red on his high cheekbones. That insufferable know-it-all grin was plastered on his face. Instead of rising to it, Aziraphale couldn't help but feel warm and safe, again, so safe. 

You always knew where you were with demons. 

But Aziraphale was still obligated to respond. "I went to the services. Every single one." 

"It was a drag, wasn't it?" 

Aziraphale turned up his chin with his lips pursed. 

"Take that as a yes, then," Crowley said. He finished off his cup and poured himself more instead of waiting for Aziraphale to fill it like he was supposed to. 

"There's only so many Latin verses one can take, angel or no," Aziraphale offered. "Maybe I nodded off once or twice.” He all but pouted. “It really isn't pleasant to be scolded by an abbot." 

"Try demons, then we'll talk." Crowley stole food off of his plate and tilted his head back to more or less swallow the piece of fish whole. 

"I have, once. I can't say I cared for it," Aziraphale said gently but with amusement. 

"I didn't either," Crowley said, quieter. There was a beat or three as Aziraphale softened, then Crowley asked, "More sake?" 

"Please." 

As they sipped hot sake, warm under the blanket, Aziraphale knew he'd missed Crowley just as much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Fernão Mendes Pinto, to be exact.
> 
> Other notes:  
> Chapter title is my favorite song by mitsume. Serendipity was looking up the English translation and discovering あこがれ (akogare) means "yearning".
> 
> Also, I love getting comments! I do read them all and I love hearing what you think.


	14. Sorting It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale gets caught playing hooky; Crowley lets him in on a trade secret.

"Aziraphale?" 

Aziraphale had just stepped off the boat with Crowley right behind him. As soon as Crowley saw Uriel waiting at the end of the pier, he turned heel and whistled ever so casually as he strolled off. 

Aziraphale managed not to look off after him, but only just, instead heading straight for the other angel. "Um. Hello, Uriel, what a surprise?" 

"I am here to give you a commendation." The gold on her face glistened as she looked Aziraphale up and down. "But it seems like you haven't actually been here." 

Aziraphale, still in his Japanese robes and wooden sandals, instantly smiled uncomfortably, the hairs on his neck prickling up. "Whatever gave you that impression?" He heard muffled laughter somewhere behind him, and his nervous smile twitched. 

"We are God's servants, Aziraphale. We don't get vacations." 

"It was a business trip! I was seeing what the Eastern division was doing. Excellent work, might I add. Beautiful. Hospitable, too." A cold sweat was forming on Aziraphale's back. 

Uriel's eyes narrowed. "Right. Who did you see there?" 

"Uh…" He suddenly couldn't think of a single angel. Aziraphale couldn’t just face Uriel and say something entirely untrue—half truths perhaps, but not outright _lie_. Same problem he’d had with Gabriel. Theories were great and all, but under this kind of pressure he folded to his general angelic nature. 

Uriel smirked and handed him the paper. "Welcome back to your post, Aziraphale. Your next duties are listed under your commendation. I suggest you get to work." 

Aziraphale's mind spun with questions, with hesitations and excuses, but Uriel was already gone. Oh, no. Then, as calmly as he could, he read the commendation and then what he was supposed to do. 

_Sort out the Spanish Inquisition_

The what? 

Someone tapped him on his shoulder. Aziraphale turned to look, but no one was there. "Hi," Crowley said from his other side, startling him. 

"Oh, how I wish you wouldn't keep doing that, Crowley!' 

"But angel, how else am I going to get my kicks?" 

"From literally anyone else in the world," Aziraphale muttered, but he didn't mean it. 

Crowley peeked over his shoulder at the paper. "The Spanish Inquisition? That was a right mess. Is a right mess? I'm not sure what the state of things is." 

"Still ongoing, given the description." 

"Good luck with that." Crowley turned to leave, seemingly under the impression they were done with this conversation. Aziraphale had to hustle to keep up with his longer strides. 

"Wait! It was you, wasn't it?" 

Crowley made a non-committal kind of gesture. "I got a commendation for it," he said, looking away. Aziraphale did not catch it. 

"Then you can help!" 

Crowley rolled his eyes. "Can't handle this yourself, Aziraphale, Principality, Angel of the Eastern Gate?" Aziraphale just kept looking at him imploringly. Crowley sighed. "What's in it for me?" 

Aziraphale was yet again drawing a blank. All these celestial/infernal beings with their questions. "... A chance to go to Spain?" 

Crowley shrugged. "I was just there for the past few decades while you were moping around in nunneries—" 

"Monasteries—" 

"Right, sure. Again, what's in it for me?" 

"A chance to perpetually make jokes at my expense?" 

"They do lack luster when you're not there to hear them…" Crowley stroked his chin. "You must really be desperate, angel." 

"Oh, I just want to get on their good side!" 

"That's the only side they're supposed to have," Crowley said, extremely unhelpfully. 

"Well, my dear boy," Aziraphale said, leaning in so he could whisper, "we both know that's not true." 

Aziraphale did eventually convince Crowley to come along, persuading him by saying he could stir up some trouble, some animosity that would make Aziraphale looked like he was doing more than his fair share of thwarting evil. The Arrangement was, as ever, a fragile compromise of guilt and pragmatism. But, he found, he didn't need Crowley to cause any trouble. He just needed him to point him in a general direction. 

Aziraphale thought to himself once he actually witnessed the Inquisitors, _Hell is empty, and all the devils are here_. The public defamation and torture and cruelty, always unfounded, and with victims having no recourse. The destruction of Jewish and Muslim families, of their communities, all ordered by the church. He cringed thinking about how much his side had seemed to encourage this behavior, and also how much he had already missed by not being here. He wondered, though he tried his best to stop, why exactly he was here. Heaven had an agenda Aziraphale didn't understand. 

As soon as they reached a Spanish beach, however, Crowley traded in whatever guise he had for a bathing suit, a towel, and a jug of sangria. 

"Crowley! This is not your second vacation!" 

"... It isn't?" 

"No! We need to get this sorted out—" 

"What do you think you can do in this situation, angel? Any action against them is just going to get you tortured and discorporated. Let the humans sort it out." 

Aziraphale, stunned, shook his head. "And whose fault is that, hmm? The torture, all the pain? You said you did this." 

"Ah. I said I got a commendation for it. I was not, one could argue, directly involved. In any capacity." 

"Then, what have you been doing for the past few decades?" 

Crowley motioned to all of himself laying out on his side in his bathing suit with a full glass of sangria. 

Aziraphale's shoulders fell. "In Japan you said you had a spiral!" 

Crowley frowned, but even Aziraphale could tell it was not at all serious. "We all process grief in different ways," he said, hand to his chest, drawing out the words with his face still contorted with sadness. Then he sat back, head propped on his hand. "To my credit, I was usually much, much less sober." 

Aziraphale took on a more pleading, almost desperate tone. "Crowley. I really want to help these people." 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "I distinctly remember you saying you just wanted to get on Heaven's good side again. You know, make it look like you were making an effort. Is that not what this is?" 

Now even Crowley was making Aziraphale feel guilty. His entire face burned from being caught by his own unholy motivations like a school boy, or what he imagined a school boy might feel like. But, he found a little well of dignity somewhere and stood up straight again. "It… it was, yes. But this—” he said with his hands out, “—this is too much. I want to help." 

"Of course you do. But what are you going to do? Fight the whole Catholic church? Politicizing is not your strong suit.” He took another sip of his drink. “S'why you're here with me in the first place." 

"There's got to be something! Maybe hiding them? Helping them escape?" 

"The Spaniards are even taking this into the New World, angel." 

Aziraphale slumped onto the beach. Crowley handed him a glass and poured sangria into it. Aziraphale felt angry he would do such a thing, but the heat quickly faded as Aziraphale took it and sipped it anyway. "The humans are smarter than me," Aziraphale said, defeated. 

"That's the spirit," Crowley said, chugging his drink until it was empty. 

"But what do I _do_ , Crowley?" 

Crowley poured another drink for himself. "The higher ups said to just sort it out, didn't they? Didn't give a deadline or something to do… So I say you just, you know, put your good influence out there." 

"What?" 

"Wherever you go, things get a little brighter." With that, Aziraphale cocked his head and blinked in surprise, like he hadn't heard him correctly. Crowley immediately broke eye contact and turned to brush some pretend sand off of his chest. "You know, literally," he added with a mutter into his drink before sipping again. 

Louder, he continued, "I think it's best if you're just _with_ them, rather than off trying to get your own faith sorted out or holed up in a cabin. A little God-granted comfort for ‘em couldn't hurt." Aziraphale perked up as he considered the possibilities, finally feeling like he had an answer. He opened his mouth to say thank you just as Crowley jabbed his finger into the pudge of Aziraphale's chest. "But you didn't hear that from me," he said, and it was clearly a threat. 

Aziraphale just smiled and tilted his head. "Hear what?" 

"That–oh! Look at you, angel. Cleverer by the day." He swirled his glass. “Cheers.” 


	15. Serpent Heart

After deciding to be amongst the people spreading goodness, Aziraphale saw a housewife hanging sheets outside in the midday sun. Dour, unsatisfied, hands calloused with toil–she would be the perfect candidate for effusing the beauty of the world. He used his angelic influence to suggest that the wild daffodil in front of her home was particularly stunning today, imparting a sense of appreciation for the mundane miracle of life. Feeling accomplished, he smiled and tugged at the bottom of his coat before walking on to meet Crowley at the beach. 

When she noticed the daffodil, she smiled like a person might if they were holding their child for the first time. She knelt beside it, observing it so closely that her nose was practically against the yellow petals, glowing with wonder, undue fascination. Her little one, no more than three, tugged at her skirts at dinner time. Normally, she would already be slicing, dicing, mixing, and generally making the best of meager supplies. No chores had been done whatsoever, so enthralled was she. "Inside," she commanded, and the child sniffled but obeyed. 

On his way home after sunset, pleasantly tipsy and a little sun-kissed, Aziraphale found the housewife still reveling in the beauty of the daffodil, the world simply turning around her. A loud wail rang from inside, and even some yards away Aziraphale could feel distress. Aziraphale’s eyes went wide with horror. He tried to influence her again but then dithered about what he would suggest, worried he would do too much again. As he dithered, the woman burst into tears next to the house, obviously reacting to his panic in a visceral way, which made Aziraphale panic all the more. 

Calm… Oh, _Crowley_ was calm, what would he do? He did his best to channel a bit of that and simply turned her attention to her child again. She sat up suddenly as she snapped back to reality and held her arms out for her son. The rest was free will. 

Aziraphale panted as he leaned against the eaves of the house and tried to remain out of sight. He ripped the flower out of the ground and shredded it to bits, not taking any chances. Grimacing, he shut his mind off tight and kept a singular focus as he walked back home. 

This shouldn’t have been so difficult. He had influenced hundreds of people before, mostly through blessing them but also through... _tarnishing_ them when schedules demanded a little flexibility. But this wasn’t like imparting the divine will of God. These were Aziraphale’s own ideas. He didn’t have the Divinity Handbook to guide him on what was and wasn’t praiseworthy. No, this was more like allowing people to enjoy the world for the world’s sake. Aziraphale could hone his love for the divine, but his love for the world was innumerable, immutable, hard to press into a tight, human-digestible channel like his innate love for God. For his own peace of mind, he chalked the difference up to millennia’s worth of familiarity with divinity. 

He couldn't bring himself to try to cure the misery in Spain after a mishap like that. And anyway, he highly suspected "sorting things out" was a lost cause. Though he was not typically fatalistic, he had been told his efforts were in vain all along one too many times. He traveled back to England alone, aware he was being defiant but also aware he would make things worse by interfering. After convincing himself it wouldn’t backfire like the first time, he tried again. This time, he would be more indirect. Something more like curing a disease, or more generally brightening someone’s mood. Yes, that would do nicely; no need for absolutes that way. He stocked a few pantries on his walkabout after seeing some waifish children running about and cured a few people on their deathbeds, cueing a strongly worded note from Azrael later. (STAY IN YOUR LANE, said the message.) 

But, he hadn’t worked through the implications. Superstition was a concept he’d never had a firm grasp of as it was entirely illogical. It turned out that people didn’t like waking up to a full pantry when they had no clue where it’d come from, suspecting poison before altruism. The ill people who mysteriously recovered from the brink of death only felt vindicated as the true recipients of the blessing of heaven, becoming arrogant and unsympathetic to the dying. No, the 16th century was the wrong time for miracles. Aziraphale discovered this when his food was being burned and the healthy were preaching their superiority in the eyes of the kingdom of Heaven. 

Defeated, Aziraphale turned up to his biweekly duck feeding with Crowley with a chip on his shoulder. 

Aziraphale tore stale pieces of bread with vigor and chucked them. He hadn't talked yet, fuming over his lack of perception and feeling utterly helpless to fix it. 

"You're going to scare them all away at this rate," Crowley said, and sure enough the ducks were skirting his side in favor of Crowley's. Oh, so even the ducks couldn't appreciate him, Aziraphale thought snidely. "You're going to make me ask, aren't you? Stubborn bastard," Crowley muttered. "What's wrong, angel?" 

"It's nothing," he said through gritted teeth. "You couldn't help me anyway." 

"Oh, probably not. Help is entirely undemonic." Crowley aimed in an arc and landed a piece right into a duck's beak. He looked at Aziraphale, obviously ecstatic, and Aziraphale couldn't help but smile. "Could listen, though. I'm not very good at it, I'm told, but I do have ears." 

Aziraphale breathed a melancholy sigh and looked ahead at the sun dancing on the water. "It's not working. What you said in Spain. I'm not making anyone any happier just by being around." 

Crowley opened and shut his mouth, obviously thinking better of something. Probably something rude. "Well, what have you tried?" 

"I tried to show a woman simple appreciation for God's beauty but it went… awry. She ignored everything else the entire time we were at the beach. Then, I cured a few people and they became abhorrent and arrogant. I stocked a few pantries and found rats picking through the food in the trash." Aziraphale tutted. "No, evil is easy. Seeds of evil have much more fertile ground, you see. It doesn't work the same way with good." 

“It does. It will, angel, oh ye of little faith,” Crowley said with his damnable crooked smirk. 

Aziraphale glared, which only made Crowley smile wider. “What am I doing wrong?” 

“Can’t go figuring things out for you, can I? I’ve got to have some plausible deniability.” 

Aziraphale chucked a piece of bread hard enough to make a duck squawk and flap as it was pelted between the eyes. “I’d help you,” he said petulantly. 

“Oh, you wouldn’t. Don't look at me like that, you absolutely wouldn’t. And besides, I don’t need it. I've made some zealots all riled up about the evils of the performing arts.” 

Aziraphale would have pelted _him_ in the eye next, if he hadn’t had shades protecting them. 

“Look, this is all I’m going to say on the matter: you have to understand people to help them or hurt them. And people are always, always changing.” 

Aziraphale had to concede that change was not his strong suit. It wasn’t as simple as filling up some grain bins for camels now. Concepts changed. People changed. And he didn’t know them from Adam. He was even still in the fashion of decades ago, the stubborn Tudor to the current Jacobean. 

“Let’s go to a play,” Aziraphale said suddenly. 

“I don’t even have to tempt you into my dens of depravity, I see.” 

“The theatre was fine before you came along. Though, I’m afraid you’ve just hopped on a current trend.”  
  
“Usually the done thing,” Crowley agreed. 

\-- 

The play: Romeo and Juliet. The scene: fair Verona. The atmosphere: titillating. The theatre was packed to the gills with people of all creeds and classes despite the fringe opinions preached by Puritans. Aziraphale had a moment to relax in the anonymity of a crowd. Crowley sat beside him, the picture of gothic Jacobean. He handed Aziraphale an ale, blessedly (or demonically) cold. Aziraphale took little sips of it, preferring any alcohol to none. At least cold it tasted less like urine. The chorus began with the prologue, of the houses alike in dignity and so forth. It was familiar, but all the more lovely for it. 

“Bit on the nose, isn’t it?” Crowley said under his breath. 

“Hmm? Oh, yes. It’s fate.” 

“Ineffable,” said Crowley mocked in a posh tone, sneering. 

“Only in the world. On stage, fate is the author's choice, isn’t it? Now hush.” A couple of haughty nobles in the gallery had turned to glare. Aziraphale suspected Crowley’s presence anywhere demanded a good glare or two by nature. If a demon is present and no one is around to glare, did he really fall? 

Aziraphale was an easy audience member to captivate, and this performance was inspired. The comedy compelled laughter, the politics inspired intrigue, the feuds bated breath, the frantic young love incited swoons and sighs. 

When a woman in the audience screamed and fainted as Romeo took the poison, Aziraphale was cast out of his revery of the performance to look about the grounds for her, making sure she was okay. The players, who had been on every beat with impeccable timing, missed a few, looking at each other like they’d been stunned out of some kind of trance. This was somehow more alarming than the woman fainting. Aziraphale looked at them in confusion. Each of them looked directly back at him in equivalent confusion. 

“Get on with it, then!” Crowley shouted from the rafters, to a chorus of murmurs of agreement. The players took the cue and played on through the finale. Amidst the cheering as the players bowed, Crowley turned to Aziraphale. 

“You did that,” said Crowley. 

“The fainting? Certainly not! How dare you even imply such a thing.” 

“No, angel. Fifteen hundred people here and you–” he said, nodding to the stage, “–were their audience. They didn’t know it, but they were playing for you. Could you not feel that?” 

“No,” Aziraphale admitted. “What do you mean?” 

“That’s your good influence at work. Making people do their best. Affecting everyone, like receiving recognition from Heaven itself. People were _sobbing_. I’ve never seen that happen before when I’ve gone by myself.” 

“You’ve seen Shakespeare without me?” Aziraphale accused. 

“Only when you’re out of town, and that’s besides the point. This is how you make good things better, Aziraphale.” 

“But I had no idea I was doing it!” 

“Probably why it worked so well. You weren’t overthinking it,” Crowley mused. 

Aziraphale mulled that over. “If I affect things that way, then why don’t you?” 

“I have the opposite effect, is all. _A Midsummer’s Nights Dream_ got ugly. A minor fiasco. Oberon left with two black eyes,” he said with pride. 

“Then, why didn't you interfere with me? In the interest of maintaining the balance, of course.” 

Crowley bit his lip and went silent, actively looking out into the street instead. Aziraphale considered how seldom he’d seen Crowley looking towards the stage throughout the whole performance when he caught his eye to make a side comment. Some part of himself, a very small, quiet part, knew that he had been Crowley’s audience as well, more captivating than the plight of the star-crossed lovers. The much louder, sensible majority told him to stop being daft. 


End file.
